MatthewMaynard.net

The Constitution prohibits unwarranted seizure, but I can’t take Congress to court over their seizure of an entire hour from my life at approximately two in the morning today. It’s an hour that I won’t get back, despite their protestations to the contrary. By the time they decide to give it back to me, it will already have been cost-averaged over several months.

They say we switch our clocks twice a year for energy savings. This must be a lie that FDR came up with, like his Social “Security” scheme, designed to let us think we’re saving something when really we aren’t. Supposedly it will prevent us from turning on the light and burning extra energy, but what they fail to realize is that the hot water heater, the refrigerator, and the HVAC system are all still running, regardless of the time. These are the three biggest energy hogs in any house, and since they care about temperature and not time, DST doesn’t affect them.

No, DST (or Arbitrary Congressional Time, as I’ve taken to calling it) affects us more than it affects our energy consumption. We lose an hour of sleep (which is reacquired the next time we sleep in an hour) and we still have to get up to go to work at the same time. The only thing that comes into question is whether or not our coffee maker turned on at the right time, which, truth be told, is of far greater consequence than how many milliamps of current we prevented from flowing through our new higher-efficiency curly light bulbs.

If Congress really wanted to save energy, they would mandate we all switch to solar powered refrigerators and tankless water heaters, which would have several benefits. First, it would actually save energy. Second, it would apply year round, not just for an arbitrary amount of time. Third, and most importantly, we wouldn’t have to worry that our coffee maker hadn’t turned on – we would only worry that we hadn’t prepped it the night before.

Today I had to set not less than five clocks forward, one of which was the coffee maker. Oh, how I long for the day that Virginia realizes that the Sun comes up no matter what time we say it is, on its own schedule set in a fixed pattern that does not (appreciably) change over time. May the day come quickly when Virginia sees the light, like my birth-state of Arizona.